The Werewolf of Walnut Grove 2/5

As Albert and Laura are walking home from school, Bart forces himself into helping Laura carry her books. She puts up a pretty good fight, but Albert steps in by telling “Bartholomew” to stop. “Don’t call me Bartholomew, shorty,” he responds. Albert, who is one-third the size of the new “kid” counters with “Don’t call me shorty, Bar-thol-o-meeeew,” then shoves the bully away. Sidebar: a few years later there’s an episode where Albert is revealed to be a morphine addict. I wonder if he got hooked on the stuff as a result from all the cruisin’ for bruisin’ that he evidently enjoys engaging in.

Anyway, Bart punches Albert squarely across the face and knocks him to the ground. Laura sees an opportunity to jump on Bart’s back to pull him away, but since he is more man than child (at least 90/10) he is still able to go after Albert. Almanzo, who is at work, can see the commotion and runs over to help. He struggles to pull Laura off of Bart and also Bart off of Albert. Bart tells him to butt out, causing Almanzo to ask if he really wants to fight with a girl. The bully says he was fighting Albert and Almanzo points out that the kid is half Bart’s size. It might be fair to point out that Bart is about the same size, if not a tad bigger, than Almanzo. “You’re not!” Bart says as he reels up a punch. Almanzo blocks him and gives the “kid” a solid gut shot. Almanzo sends the crowd home then gets his flirt on with Laura and her pigtail. Ick. He also takes a look at Albert’s eye and predicts a beauty of a shiner. As the Ingalls kids walk away, Bart yells at Albert “I’m gonna get you, shorty.” Albert almost engages again, but Laura pulls him back.

On the trail to the homestead, Laura is going on about Almanzo’s surplus awesomeness. Albert whines about how he didn’t need to be rescued, but Laura decides to razz Albert about it instead. They try to figure out what to tell Ma and Pa about Albert’s eye which turns into a lengthy discussion about lies of omission versus boldface lies. It’s not interesting filler. Somehow it works around to Albert needing to use his brains to beat Bart rather than his non-brawn. Laura warns him not to get his brains knocked out by Bart.

The next day Almanzo is dropping off his sister at the school when Mr. Slater intercepts them. He’s pissed. “WILDER! You hit my boy, yesterday.” Almanzo claims self-defense, but Mr. Slater says that Bart said that Almanzo started the fight for no reason. His name ain’t Tracy, Mr. Slater. Anyway, Almanzo calls bullshit and tries to explain what really happened. Mr. Slater cuts Manly off, saying that children fight amongst themselves so they should handle it. Almanzo says that doesn’t work when one of the kids involved is bigger than most grown men. At least this clears up whether Bart’s size was intentional or a grievous mistake from central casting. Mr. Slater says that he will take care of disciplining his child, and Almanzo tells him to get started. Ooooh, buuuurrrrrn. Slater says Bart behaves at home and that it’s the teacher’s job to make sure he behaves at school. “If you can’t Ms. Wilder, maybe the school board can find someone who can.” Oh dear.

During class, Ms. Wilder is writing something on the board when Bart starts a wadded paper fight with a couple other kids. She restores order then asks Albert to come up to the front and solve the math problem on the board. As he walks up Bart grabs the back of Albert’s suspenders and flings him backwards. Ms. Wilder asks Bart to stop. As Albert does the math, Bart places something on Albert’s seat. Apparently Mary isn’t the only blind one in the family as Laura doesn’t notice. Clarence tries to say something, but Ms. Wilder tells him to be quiet.

Albert completes the division problem without showing his work, which impresses Ms. Wilder. He goes to sit down and lands on a tack. Clarence pipes in that it was Bart who did it. Bart turns around, grabs the kid, lifts him up, and I think is about to unhinge his jaw to devour the poor boy before Ms. Wilder tells him to stand in the corner. “My pa ain’t gonna like this,” he says. She corrects his grammar and repeats her demand. As he moves towards the corner, he throws Ms. Wilder’s chair to the ground. I guess he’s preparing his monologue for his intro theater class at the community college. This startles Ms. Wilder and she commands Bart to pick up her chair. “Pick it up yourself,” he sneers. She tries for an ultimatum, but Bart calls her bluff before she gets to the “or else”. Ms. Wilder tries to regain her composure as she begins her lesson on decimals. She’s overwhelmed, decimated even, and decides to dismiss class. The kids file out. As Bart leaves, Ms. Wilder starts crying. She’s not really doing much for the harsh schoolmistress stereotype.

The Werewolf of Walnut Grove 1/5

1980 – Albert and Laura plan to frighten a bully whose disruptions caused the teacher to resign.

A team of horses brings in this episode as they move towards a worksite outside a farmhouse. Two men, one named Mr. Slater, are discussing some blueprints for a silo project. Charles rides up with a lumber delivery just as the blueprint conversation finishes and Mr. Slater goes to unload Mr. Ingalls’ wagon. Mrs. Slater exits the farmhouse wearing what could best be described as a “Top of the Mournin’” ensemble: a grayish black dress with an inexplicable green hat. It is not fashion forward, even for 1890.

Mr. Slater calls for his son, Bartholomew, to get a move on as school is about to start. A younger gentleman, I’d say around age 25 exits the house. “Why do I have to wear these sissy clothes anyway?” he asks Mrs. Slater. Oh, apparently I was mistaken. He is not a gentleman. And I guess he’s not 25? Either that or he was held back...a lot. Bartholomew then asks his father why he has to go to school when he would rather work, but Mr. Slater says that this is what mom wants. Mrs. Slater cuts in to say that it takes brains and brawn to run a farm the size of Slater Estates. Bartholomew reluctantly mounts the wagon as his parents discuss the boy. “I wish you had talked to him about behavior,” Mrs. Slater says to her husband. “Schooling’s your idea, woman. You handle it.” Charming.

Mr. Slater leaves to give his workers some instructions as Mr. Ingalls looks on. As Mrs. Slater and Bartholomew depart, she tells her son to mind his manners and behave himself. She doesn’t want Bartholomew to get thrown out of this school. I have a feeling this might be important background information for later on.

At the schoolhouse, Ms. Wilder is looking over the new student’s transcripts and is less than impressed with Bartholomew's record. “Bart,” he corrects her, tersely. Thank goodness, I was not looking forward to typing out “Bartholomew” a hundred more times before this recap was done. Anyway, Ms. Wilder asks Bart to take a seat and he gives the room a onceover. He sees Laura, saunters over to the desk she shares with Albert and says hi. “I want to sit there, shorty,” he says to Albert. “I’m sitting here,” he replies. “I can fix that,” Bart says as he grabs Albert’s shoulder to shove him off the bench. Before he can do so, Willie Oleson hops out of his seat and offers Bart his desk. Brownnoser. Willie’s former deskmate Clarence sidles over to give Bart some space but Bart wants the whole space. When the kid, who I would say is maybe nine or ten, tells him to go fly a kite, Bart just bumps him off the end. The other kids laugh at this, causing Ms. Wilder to ask what is going on. Clarence sheepishly joins Willie in the back of the room. Ms. Wilder announces that there are two new projects coming up and is met with kids moaning.

Meanwhile at the Mercantile, Mrs. Slater interrupts Harriet as she warbles some song from the public domain. They chit chat about all of the renovations happening at the Slaughterhouse. Uh, Slater house. Mrs. Slater is looking for some drapery material and Mrs. Oleson starts gushing over some new swatches that just came in. The first fabric Harriet shows Mrs. Slater looks not unlike the background here, only with a brown base instead of blue. Mrs. Slater tries to laugh it off, but comes right out and says that it is absolutely awful. It sounds rude, but it doesn’t come off that way since she is objectively correct. Harriet tries to say that Nels picked out the fabric, blah blah blah, but he comes in and asks if she is still trying to sell the horrible fabric she ordered. Mrs. Oleson tries to laugh it off. What is the point of this scene?

Back at the school, Ms. Wilder just revealed the new project for the kiddies. We don’t know what that project is, which explains why we just wasted 3 minutes at the Mercantile. Anyway, a kid asks what can be written about the sky. Ms. Wilder suggests writing about the influences the moon has on the Earth. The kid asks for clarification. Ms. Wilder first mentions tides and follows that with exploring the moon’s effects on people. “You mean like making them lovey dovey?” Willie asks jokingly. Ms. Wilder smiles, albeit disapprovingly, and says “more seriously, it is said that many people’s minds go awry at the full of the moon.” Umm, I think Willie may have out-serioused you on that one, Ms. Wilder. “That is the derivation of the word lunatic,” she continues. Kids love that Latin. Bart sees this as an opportunity to blubber his lips with his fingers. Sure, why not? Laura and Albert glare at him as the other kids laugh.

Ms. Wilder either ignores Bart or didn’t notice as she prattles on about the moon, delving into the topic of werewolves. “Are there really werewolves, Ms. Wilder?” Carrie asks. This piques Bart’s interest. Ms. Wilder says that she doesn’t personally doesn’t believe they exist, but she does have a copy of "Werewolf written by the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould in 1865.” Not the correct title or publishing date, but I do give Ms. Wilder props for at least presenting both sides of the debate. She also mentions that he wrote “Onward, Christian Soldiers”, which is correct. That was written in 1865, so maybe that’s where the mistake came in. Come on, Little House, where are my fact checkers?

Ms. Wilder introduces the second project by commenting on the marvelous work Clarence does with papier-mache. She invites him to the front of the room for a demonstration. Both Clarence and Ms. Wilder pronounce “papier” as three syllables instead of saying “paper”, which is really screwing with my Midwestern sensibilities. Anyway, he removes the cloth on Ms. Wilder’s desk to show all the things you can make with this technique. A huge mess does not make the short list. Ms. Wilder gets over stimulated by the purple kangaroo, to which Bart makes a face not unlike the one I’m making: “calm down, ma’am.” Clarence continues with the demo and Ms. Wilder invites Bart to try it out. He walks up to the front of the room, takes a strip of paper and uses Clarence’s head as a mold. I can see why a huge mess didn’t make the short list. The class laughs, including Laura and Albert though she tries to compose herself, and Ms. Wilder freaks out. “What are you doing?!” she squeals. “I’m making a midget,” Bart responds. I’ll give that a point, though he would have gotten more if he had said a purple midget. Ms. Wilder tells Clarence to go outside and clean up and tells Bart to go help and apologize. She warns him that she will ask Clarence if he received a proper apology. I wonder if we’ll ever see or hear Clarence again.

Silent Promises 5/5

It’s nighttime at the Ingalls’ homestead and Albert is still working his sales pitch on Bandit. The dog is looking it over but isn’t convinced. It’s a buyer’s market, Albert, deal with it. Pa comes outside to tell Albert to go to bed. Albert gets five more minutes to make the sale and decides to imitate a dog going into the dog house. You know what border collies don’t respond to? That. As Albert goes into the house making dog noises, the sound guys decide a cavernous echo is the way to go which would not really work as a selling point for me. It doesn’t work for Bandit either.

Sunrise on the prairie as Charles leaves the house looking for Albert. It turns out the kid fell asleep inside the dog house. Oh dear. Caroline comes outside asking if either of the guys had seen Laura, but no one knows her whereabouts. Pa goes for a walk and finds Laura sitting in the woods. She’s wondering what to do about the whole Daniel situation. Although she doesn’t love Daniel the way he loves her, Laura wants to know if she should live her life to make him happy. Y’know: settle. “Sharing your life with someone is fine,” Pa says, “but you gotta love ‘em.” Laura wants to know how she can express this without hurting Daniel. Yeah, it doesn’t quite work that way, unfortunately. Laura predicts that Daniel will ultimately give up his studies, but Pa says that is Daniel’s own fault if he quits out of spite.

Daniel is studying in the main room when Laura arrives. She apologizes about leading him on with the whole ring wearing thing. “I wanted you to learn, but not for me, for you,” she signs. She leaves out the part about him being too young for her. Daniel is being stubborn about it, but Laura removes the ring and gives it back to him. He tears up his manual and turns his back on Laura. She leaves.

Nathan returns and sees the torn manual and ring on the table. He goes to Daniel’s room to see what is going on. Daniel signs that Laura lied and his father asks why. When Daniel doesn’t offer an answer, Nathan explains that Laura lied because she felt sorry for Daniel. Before I can object to this, Nathan goes on to say that he was doing the same thing by keeping Daniel away from people to protect him. Now that they see the error of their ways, Daniel should continue learning. Nathan goes on to say that Daniel is no longer getting special treatment since he can now be treated like any other child. They hug. Aw.

Back at the Ingalls, Caroline climbs up to the loft to check on Laura who is feeling sorry for herself. Daniel shows up during the pep talk to speak with Laura. He brought his manual and apologizes. He asks her to be his teacher again and Laura agrees. They go outside while Ma and Pa hug. Laura then does a voiceover musing about teaching and the importance of education. Hopefully her words don’t fall on deaf ears. What?

Silent Promises 4/5

Both Mr. and Mrs. Oleson are behind the counter at the Mercantile as Laura and Daniel arrive. After greetings are exchanged, Laura asks Daniel what he would like. Daniel signs that he would like candy, but he wants to know how much it costs. Laura double checks the price of gumballs with Mrs. Oleson, who is taken aback that any sort of information has been exchanged. Nels is obviously quite impressed while Harriet is bewildered. Daniel signs “see you later”, which Laura translates for the Olesons. Mrs. Oleson does a weird thing with her hands before settling on waving goodbye. Daniel waves back with a “what’s her problem?” look on his face. The kid picks up on nuance rather quickly, I’ll give him that. After the kids leave, Harriet tells Nels that all the finger-wriggling was making her nervous and that it is not natural. Y’know, that wouldn’t make me so angry if it wasn’t for the fact that in 2009 that line of thinking still exists in the world. Not necessarily about sign language (I don’t recall ever hearing complaints), but about…ok, this isn’t the forum for this discussion. Anyway, Harriet says as she leaves the room “if God had wanted me to talk with my hands, he wouldn’t have given me a mouth.” Nels’ response: “even God can make a mistake.” Eh, half-a-point Mr. Oleson.

Laura and Daniel are walking by a stream and set to work on their next lesson. As she opens the manual, Daniel places his hands on it to get her attention. He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a chain with a ring on it and hands it to Laura. The ring belonged to his mother and Laura remarks that it is beautiful and that Daniel shouldn’t lose it. He signs that it is a gift, but Laura politely refuses. Daniel insists, but Laura says it should be a gift for the woman he marries. He signs “I love you”. Laura: “I love you too, but…” Daniel stops Laura and then kisses her. She has a bit of a conniption. I don’t think she was leading him on, but throwing around “I love yous” a little too loosely is going to get you into trouble, half-pint. Daniel freaks and runs away.

Nathan returns home and sees Daniel staring into the fireplace instead of studying. Nathan tells his son it is important to study, but he slaps the book away and goes to his bedroom. Nathan looks on in wonder.

Almanzo sees Laura moping around town and asks what’s up. Okay, I didn’t realize how much of an age difference there was between these two characters until this scene. She wants him so badly…the girl’s an open page. Anyway, he notices the necklace and thinks it must be related to whatever problem Laura is having. Eventually Sarah, Almanzo’s ladyfriend, comes up and says hi to the two of them. Laura gets a brief Flavor of Love look in her eyes and her smile gets a little sadder. I’ve been there, honey. She signs “I love you” towards Almanzo as he and Sarah are walking away.

Nathan is working outside as Laura arrives at the house. She asks if Daniel is home, but Nathan says she might as well just burn the books. This guy really needs to tone down the extremism in his reactions to everyday obstacles. There’s just something eerie about the calmness in his voice when he suggests book burning. Nathan asks what happened but Laura is purposely vague. He directs her to the pasture where Daniel is sitting next to a tree. He notices Laura then looks away. She removes the necklace, takes off the ring strung on the line, and puts it on her finger. Daniel hugs her in appreciation. Aw.

Silent Promises 3/5

FIRE!! Oh, it’s the hearth in the Page living room. As Nathan is sitting down, Laura asks if he would like some coffee. He says alright, then Laura signs “coffee for father” for Daniel who goes to fulfill the request. Oops, did he forget to sign “Hi, I’m Daniel and I’ll be your server today?” Mr. Page asks Laura how she did that and she explains the concept of sign language. She starts to flip through a manual, but Nathan says he needs his glasses. Before he can get up to retrieve them, Laura signs “spectacles for father” and Daniel goes and grabs them. Nathan is dubious, claiming that Daniel saw the book being opened and, knowing that his father can’t read without his glasses, went to retrieve them. Laura asks why Mr. Page is being so resistant. “I’ve been living with him for fifteen years,” he says, “next thing you’ll tell me he can hear.” Eh, at least it’s not an accusation of witchcraft. Goody Ingalls asks Nathan to ask Daniel something. Nathan wants Daniel to show him the picture of Daniel’s mother. Laura demonstrates “show me mother’s picture” and Nathan mimics. He then signs it for Daniel, who complies with the request. Nathan is wowed and Laura goes for the kill with her sales pitch. Nathan then asks how he can tell Daniel he loves him. Aw. And then they make out…just kidding. They do hug and Laura smiles.

We then see a montage of Nathan reading up on his sign language. After watching him learn the first few letters of the alphabet, we dissolve into a scene of the father and son signing the Lord’s Prayer by Daniel’s bedside. I’ll probably be upgrading my ticket to Hell for saying this, but it looks like they’re doing some sort of Holy Hand Jive.

The next day at the Ingalls’ place, Albert bursts through the front door telling everyone to come out and look at his finished work. Everyone goes outside, though no one is more reluctant than Bandit. Albert uncovers the dog house and the family congratulates him. Bandit just looks around like most dogs do. He’s not having anything to do with the dog house. Both of the dogs I had growing up were indoor dogs, so a dog house was never an issue, but I doubt either one would have been enthusiastic about being expected to live in a dark enclosure. Well, my second dog might have, but only in the case of thunderstorms because she would be hiding. But we wouldn’t be leaving her outside in that situation, so it’s kind of a moot point. Albert is trying to goad Bandit, but the dog is totally non-responsive. I don’t think he has fully adopted Albert the way the other Ingalls have. Just saying.

Silent Promises 2/5

Laura is at the Pages’ homestead asking Nathan if she can try to teach Daniel sign language. Nathan politely refuses, saying that special training would be required of anyone who is going to engage in special teaching. Laura claims that she is a teacher-in-training and it’s not like Mr. Page has a specialist already lined up. He keeps claiming it’s a waste of time. Dude, the worst that can happen is Daniel doesn’t learn, which means that he is in no worse position than he is now. You have nothing to lose. Oh geez, he plays the “God’s will” card, which Laura counters with “it’s my time I’m wasting (true) and God gave us our own wills (that’s one theory).” Nathan ignores the theological debate bait (debait?), tells Laura she’s wasting her time, but agrees. She starts tomorrow morning.

At the Ingalls’ place, Charles is at the table lighting his after-dinner pipe. We can hear hammering noises in the background, which causes Caroline to ask Charles to ask Albert to hold off on the dog house construction so that the baby can get some sleep. Charles goes to the door and calls out to Albert that it’s quitting time. That was uneventful. Laura comes downstairs with her signing books. She and Pa talk about her new client and that Laura wants to go to the Wilders’ house in the morning so she can tell Ms. Wilder all about it. Charles can read between the lines and suggests telling Ms. Wilder the news at school on Monday. Laura can read between the lines too and they have a little daddy-daughter bonding moment. Aw. Again, uneventful.

The next morning Albert is back to work on the dog house. He has a frame built as Laura heads out for her lesson. Albert asks for her opinion, but Laura says that no dog in its right mind is going to sleep in that box. Albert takes offense to this, wrinkles his nose and asks his sister why she smells like Ma. Y’know, in all my years of bickering with my siblings, I’ve never used “why do you smell like Ma?” as a go to insult or “oh yeah?” variant. Oh, Laura put on some perfume for her visit to the Wilders. Albert knows what’s up and Laura gets a little too indignant about his line of questioning and storms off. Girl, just own the fact that you’re into older guys, alright?

Laura makes her way to Daniel’s house. He sees her through the window and has an ear-to-ear smile as he opens the door for her. He’s got it bad, got it bad, got it bad. Laura signs “Hi”, which doesn’t really register a response since he doesn’t know sign language yet. Laura seems a bit baffled by this and starts flipping through one of her manuals. Daniel walks over to see what she is looking for. She then signs “good morning”. What’s the sign for “ass-backwards”? Laura starts to get a bit flustered that things don’t seem to be registering with Daniel and flips through the manual again. She walks to the window, taps on it, then does the sign for “window”. Okay, that looks a bit more productive albeit low energy. This starts to register with Daniel, so Laura tries the same approach with the door. Daniel does the sign for “window” again and Laura corrects him. They go through a couple more, including “perfume”. Yeah, that one’s going to be useful for day-to-day chores on the Page homestead. Laura does a mini-quiz, but Daniel has trouble with “door”. “Oh well,” Laura says, “nobody said it was gonna be easy.”

An indeterminate amount of time has passed and the lessons have moved to a wooded area. Laura’s going through various abstracts, such as “seeing” (points to her eyes); “funny” (which she signs but doesn’t demonstrate) and “happy” (signs and smiles, which doesn’t really differentiate between her other signs). She does “mad”, which just causes Daniel to look at the audience in polite confusion. Oh, he’s distracted by the picnic setup in the foreground. He signs something then produces a wrapped package. Laura is excited and says “You did it!” Okay? Not too sure what happened there, but hooray. They hug and it starts to rain. She does the sign for “rain”, he mimics, and then there’s a clap of thunder. Maybe you should seek shelter, kids. Instead, they hug and spin in circles, like you do.